Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Is Yet Another Putin Contract with the Russian People in Trouble?

Paul
Goble

Staunton, December 27 – Russian
commentator Ilya Milshteyn says that “the best way” to describe the history of
the Putin era is to outline the series of “implicit public agreements which the
people have concluded with the powers that be,” each of which promised to be
long-lasting but wasn’t and had to be replaced.

The first, he suggests in a
commentary today, was simple: Russians would back Vladimir Putin if he could
bring order in their land not only by defeating the Chechens but by
demonstrating that he was a real ruler and in charge of things, something that
could not always be said of his predecessor Boris Yeltsin (svoboda.org/a/28199121.html).

The second, Milshteyn continues, was
the most prominent one in which Russians agreed to defer to Putin on all
matters of high politics as long as he could ensure, using the money from the
oil boom of the first decade of the century, that they would see their incomes
rise and their standard of living improve.

The third, he suggests, is the most
interesting because Putin didn’t really want to accept it and took actions on
his own to destroy it. That accord, Milshteyn says, involved a demand by
Russians and especially those in Moscow and the other big cities that Putin
stop lying to them about elections and other matters, something that led to the
protests of 2011-2012.

“For the first time in his
presidential like, Putin didn’t like the new accord and he responded” by moving
to replace it with a new one, based on deference to him for restoring Russia to
the status of a great power as a result of his actions first in Ukraine and
more recently in Syria.

According to Milshteyn, “the
Anschluss of Crimea and the war in the Donbass” were intended to achieve two of
Putin’s goals: “a settling of accounts” with Ukraine and “the liquidation of
civil society at home.” That gave him more freedom of action at home because no
one was going to come out against him.

And that has led to the fourth
accord, he argues, one in which Russian support Putin and all his actions even
the most notorious ones as in Aleppo despite the fact that his actions have led
to a decline in their standard of living and to the danger that they or their
relatives may die in a war in Syria or elsewhere.

There are obviously many questions
Russians could and should be asking about Putin’s policies, but mostly they
aren’t, the result of the patriotic upsurge he has promoted and the work of his
media to ensure that no one asks those questions lest others begin to search
for answers and wonder whether all their unspoken agreements with Putin have
been misplaced.

Seventeen years ago, most Russians
felt that the accord with Putin was “both wise and mutually profitable.”Few saw what it would mean for their society
as a whole or how Putin would transmute it into something else as time passed.
But more see the problems now even if they aren’t acting on them.

Milshteyn concludes that Russians
are now worried simply about surviving and argues the need Russians naturally
feel for self-preservation, “which is stronger than other fears,” may be
sufficient for a time to keep their questions in check and thus Putin in power
until he can come up with another accord that may be even more disturbing.

But if the Russian commentator
thinks that likely, the editors of “Nezavisimaya gazeta” offer a different
view: They argue in a lead article today that “the powers that be” which is to
say Putin “are able to defend themselves but they are far from always able to defend
the lives of the citizens” (ng.ru/editorial/2016-12-27/2_6895_red.html).

“The state,
legislators, activists and guardians of morality are ready to protect Russians
form everything: from harmful information on the Internet, from ‘incorrect’
films, exhibits, plays and museums, from distortions of the history of World
War II, from foreign agents … from Western diktat, and from “an excess of
foreign products on their shelves.

But recent events show that the
powers that be can’t guarantee that they can protect the most basic right of
Russians, their right to life.“On the
contrary, they are constantly creating ever new risks for the lives of Russians.
Russia is in the Syrian war,” and they can’t leave quickly without the spilling
of more “Russian blood.”

Putin and this regime can’t give a
reasonable explanation for why Russia is mired in this war; but by getting Russia
involved, they have “directly threatened the security of Russians abroad,
beginning with tourists and ending with diplomats and military personnel,” the
editors of the Moscow newspaper say.

No one talked about this during the
Duma campaign, the editors say. No one asked whether the state was doing
everything possible “for the defense of the lives of Russians” or whether in
fact the Kremlin was doing just the reverse.As a result, there was no clear answer.But if political life still exists in Russia, such questions must be
asked – and answers given.

Of course, “one can say,” the paper
writes, “that in other countries people also die, including diplomats and
peaceful citizens as a result of terrorist acts.” But there aren’t very many
where the population has declared on a regular basis that gives “priority to
security over rights and freedoms” or where the special services and law
enforcement are given such broad latitude.

“Almost everywhere, the death of
people, catastrophes and terrorist acts are reflected in real politics and in the
status of the powers that be,” the editors say. New laws are adopted and
changes in policy and personnel are made.

In Russia too, each new horror leads
to new laws and new policies and new personnel, but they are all designed to
defend the powers that be “from the political opposition and mass protests.”
They do little or nothing to protect ordinary citizens. That, the editors
imply, must change in the wake of the recent drumbeat of horrors.